


New Men

by karanguni



Series: New Men [1]
Category: Baccano!, Baccano!/Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-04
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a new age when men are unafraid of being exactly what they are; Luck envies them enough to put on the suit and call himself <em>Shinra</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Men

Magic does things that no science accomplishes, or maybe that's just what they say until science catches up. Science has been trying hard to catch up. Luck's watched Midgar blossom from a groove-in-the-dust backwater into a coal-spitting industrial town; now it's matured into a green-glow city prepared to do anything to get what it wants.

He strikes a match against the alleyway wall, and puts a cigarette to light. Horrible habit, science says, but _science_ has very little say over the things Luck does. The first breath of smoke is always the best: when the nicotine hits his bloodstream it's a small trip, then his body gets round to purging it and it's gone until the second drag, the third. Cigarettes die very quickly, and they haven't managed to kill him yet.

He puts the fag end out beneath his foot when it's done, the bright red ember going to ash. He lights another one. Sliding his free hand into his jacket, Luck feels for the rough grip of his gun, and waits for the commotion. Midgar has a thousand streets and a hundred thousand forgotten side streets besides. Luck hunts with stealth, not speed. Speed is part of his new job which is best done by the others, and they fulfil their purpose admirably. He's heard explosives go off twice already; small, contained and really just for the light and sound and sparkle. Shinra makes examples of people, when it can.

They're coming closer; there's been a shout or two.

Southwards from the Tower runs a main thoroughfare that splits into four large streets. They made him pull the first left, and according to what Luck's heard, the man had the courage to hold onto the blueprints as far as the next roadblock before he dumped them in a trash bin and started running for his life. _Exciting business_, Reno would say, considering the defector's ranked pretty high up in Urban Development, and that those are the schematics for the Junon canon that he's tossed aside. Now the target is headed right towards him; hurtling footsteps, a warning shot from behind the fleeing man.

Luck steps out, the man crashes into him; Luck presses the end of his cigarette into the side of the man's neck and breaks his right arm while he's otherwise occupied yelling in pain. 'We need to talk to you,' Luck says, simply, spinning him and pushing him up against the wall. 'It's advisable that you cooperate.' Luck puts pressure on the man's snapped bone, but only to make a point.

  
It's late by the time he gets out of the safe house. They have to bring the man back to Shinra, do the dispose-and-report, so Luck offers to do the driving - he's too wired to sit still, the blood going to grime under his fingernails as the focus from the job slides into adrenaline so natural that his body doesn't fight it. Luck has to concede the new decade one thing - it's never boring, never static. There's always something for his sort; right now, _his sort_ get the pick of the streets and the choice of the kill.

Luck loosens his tie only after he's sent out the necessary paperwork to the necessary people (Reeve, to alert him to the loss of one of his staff members; Tseng, for formality's sake; Rufus, because this President is smarter than his father before him, or so the others say). The elevator ride is peaceful and private at this hour; once the doors shut out the light of the lobby, it's silent all the way up to the upper sixties. Levels and levels of empire fall beneath Luck's feet, and he marvels, not for the first time, at how big Shinra is, how hungry it is, how hungry it can make its people.

It starts in the pit of his stomach. Luck's not a killer by nature, but he believes in the sort of _justice_ that Administrative Research believes in; the kind that takes what is theirs and keeps it, the same kind of justice that used to exist back when things were less structured and turf needed protecting. There's satisfaction in meting it out. The feeling sits, heavy, warm, in his gut; it gets warmer the longer he waits.

The elevator pings to a stop on the sixty-eighth, where Shinra keeps its killers. Tseng is there; he always anticipates the men who'll come to him, and they always do. Tonight he's waiting in the longue, not his office. Blazer off, leaning against the couch, one foot tapping the floor - waiting. He's an erudite predator. 'How did it go?' he asks, but it's a rhetorical question. The cuffs of Luck's shirt are now deep, messy brown, and there are parts of his suit that look darker than black.

'You have my report,' Luck nods, playing along. Tseng knows his men, and knows Luck better than most. Dangerous weapons need be kept closer, after all: Luck gets treated specially, gets kept out of Hojo's hands and away from the Science department and given as normal a life as a Turk can be given. Nothing, to Hojo, is _magic_, and Rufus doesn't want one of his men put under the knife for the sake of perverted esotericism. Luck appreciates the gesture: he appreciates men who know their match.

'I didn't mean the defector,' Tseng says, standing up and coming closer. Luck watches him, passively. Tseng's inbred with some of the bastardry that Rufus Shinra breeds that monster pet of his with. It looks good on him. The Director doesn't try to pretend to be good, doesn't pretend to be honourable. Tseng's a braver man than Luck, braver and bolder and less afraid to die. You wouldn't have put any other man in his position; you wouldn't ask any other sort of man to keep Turks obedient.

_Heel_, he can hear Tseng almost saying, _come to heel, if you want to, if you dare to._

Luck itches to move into Tseng's steadiness. 'How does anyone else feel after a job?' Luck replies. Tseng knows how they all feel after _a job_. It's a need, a small fire that's begging to be fanned. Go as far as they go and all you want to do afterwards is go _further_. That's why the older ones go to the bars; to drink themselves silly and to drink themselves sane. It's too late tonight to just drink. Luck's hungry.

'Rufus is upstairs,' Tseng says, nodding at the elevator. So he has other plans. Luck admires his dedication to his men; few people tell Rufus Shinra to _wait_. Then comes the invitation: 'Can you control yourself?'

Luck's look slides from expectant to dark. 'I don't think the President fails to enjoy that sort of thing,' he says, 'but Rufus isn't a Turk.'

Turks bend and break and follow-the-leader and prefer to _fuck_ rather than have sex. Tseng's rare in his control; Tseng doesn't take the streets very much; Tseng doesn't get his hands dirty; Tseng doesn't usually feel the need to spread the dirt out over living skin. It's a point of pride and a point of shame both, and Luck doesn't like being seen as savage even if he can't help it, can't help wanting to reach out and touch and touch and touch that heat underneath the perfect lapels, perfect coldness.

Tseng smiles, an odd expression on his face, and it makes Luck's gut twist. 'He's Rufus Shinra,' the Director points out, his loafers making _tap tap tap_ noises on the floor as he walks towards the elevators. 'He's as immortal as you are.'

_Heel,_ the Director says without saying, and Luck follows.

  
It's everything he can do to stand next to Tseng in the small space and not move. He can smell Tseng; he doesn't wear cologne, but he smells clean, close, completely different from the stench of sweat that sits underneath Luck's own collar. Tseng doesn't blink, doesn't tense up, just _waits_. He's not afraid of what anyone may say; not afraid the way Luck used to be afraid, back when Midgar was small, back when your secrets had to be kept secrets, back when it was shameful to be wrong (greedy, lustful, angry, brilliant). Tseng's never known embarrassment or restraint.

Rufus' private level is white and black and metal and glass; very fitting to the man who inhabits the place, and very unlike who he actually is. Rufus is red for his name and his passions - he doesn't deal in anything but greys - he doesn't believe in being brittle or transparent or malleable. But his rooms are a good face for how he likes his world: sorted, neat, pandered to his likes and dislikes. They're stark. You can't hide from anything in his room, or hide anything you are.

They find their President watching his city. Rufus turns, spots Luck, smiles. 'Mister Gandor,' Rufus says. 'You always surprise me.'

Luck highly doubts that he's ever _surprised_ Rufus; Tseng's right to say that men like Shinra are born ageless. 'Sir,' he says, the deferential added because Luck gave up being proud when the world grew too big for him, even if he's never given up on his pride.

'You've unique tastes,' Rufus says, turning to his liquor cabinet and pouring Luck a drink. Luck smells old brandy. 'Chess, poetry, hard drinks and a harder job. You could've chosen many other career paths, sir.'

Luck doesn't know if Rufus calls him _sir_ out of true respect, or just to mock him. It may well be both. He accepts the drink, even though it's the last thing he should be accepting when his nerves are already on fire, thrumming just beneath his skin. Tseng hasn't moved from beside him, infuriatingly close and too far away.

'Tseng?' Rufus extends the offer to the other Turk, lifting the brandy bottle.

'We're not here to drink, are we?' Tseng replies, blandly. 'Enough politics, Rufus.'

'If I didn't play that game, who would?' Rufus laughs. Luck can see the white of his throat, bare just beyond his black shirt. Rufus caps the bottle, moves so slowly that it's torture, watches Luck the entire time. Blue eyes and blond hair and so perfect Luck wants to push and shove all of that aside, see what's inside these new men that make them so much more than what old men were. Luck puts down his glass, and looks back at Tseng.

'Be patient,' Tseng says.

'For how long?' Luck raises an eyebrow.

'How long can you be?' Rufus cuts in, his voice like silk and like steel.

  
Luck knows he's already waited more than enough lifetimes to be what they are.

  
When Rufus kisses Tseng, it's watching power match power. When Rufus pushes Tseng against the glass windows, it's watching power challenge power. When Rufus runs a hand down Tseng's back and up his blazer to pull away a gun and then drop it negligibly to the floor, it's watching power yield to power. When Tseng fists his hand in Rufus' hair and spins him and presses him face-first against the bare, transparent windowpane of his world seventy floors below, Luck loses his words.

(They're too sure of themselves to be concerned with who is more powerful than whom.)

Tseng and Rufus make Luck wait, wait until Rufus is making quiet wet noises and pushing himself away from the cold of the glass and back into Tseng's hands, wait until Rufus comes on his own windows, laughing at the irony while hiccupping groans, his fingers leaving heat impressions where he braces them. Afterwards, Tseng leaves their white President there and turns, and his eyes are now as dark as Luck's are.

'You've made your own kill,' Luck says, voice too deep to be calm as he nods at Rufus, who's still breathless.

Tseng grabs Luck by the tie, and says, 'Shut up.' Luck obeys; he's a Turk now, and one of _theirs_.

(They're _men_ when they fuck, not even trying to be anything else, _how, how, how_; this isn't counter-culture anymore, it's the most powerful men on the Planet, and Luck wants to drown in it.)

When it's Tseng, there's no holding back. Tseng drags Luck away from Rufus, perhaps for damage control, but Luck doesn't care. He gets slammed onto Rufus' desk, and Tseng shows about as much care and respect for the President's work as he does for any of the men they mess up on the street. One brush of his arm sends everything onto the floor - papers, readers, pens, a small computer - and then he shoves Luck down onto surfaces and says, 'Do you want me to pretend that I could hurt you if I tried?', all courteous and unbearable.

Luck grabs Tseng by the hair, pulls hard enough that he may've yanked strands out, and then Tseng puts a hand under his throat and _pushes_ Luck's jaw up until he feels as though his neck's going to snap. 'Good answer,' Tseng says, and then he leans down and bites Luck on the base of the throat, leaving a mark and blood, for just a moment. He keeps pushing Luck's jaw back as he works Luck's pants open; Luck can't breathe, keeps gasping for air, and it feels like too much, except that he could take more, he could take so much more. When Tseng relieves the pressure Luck groans out _no_, even if Tseng is sliding down to the floor, even if he knows what's coming. He tries to pull Tseng back up; he doesn't want to see a man like that on his knees -

'_Down_,' Tseng growls, an order, and Luck finds himself obeying, and wanting to obey.

Ten minutes later, Luck is begging, but Tseng is consistent and constant and immovable. He shoves Luck back down on the table hard enough that Luck's head hits the edge with a sharp crack; Tseng doesn't even pause, only takes advantage of Luck's momentary blindness to unbutton his shirt. He reveals scars everywhere up and down his torso, worn with the same nonchalance of a man who knows he is complete as he is. He lets Luck touch and scratch at them before he turns Luck face-first over a desk that has the Shinra emblem on it; he puts one, two, three fingers up into Luck, fast and hard enough to tear and then uses the blood to smooth the way when he fucks himself down with small grunts and a request that Luck not be afraid to do what he likes later that night.

  
Luck does not touch Rufus Shinra until an hour later, in the showers where Rufus has a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing down on muscles until Luck produces deep, purring noises washed away by the fall of the water. Tseng just leans against the tile and watches, watches until Rufus beckons him over - then Luck is the one watching as Rufus coats his fingers with oil and pushes them up into Tseng.

Tseng spreads his legs and says, 'How comfortable do you think this is going to be in a shower, Rufus?', so damned practical and smooth.

'How comfortable do Turks ever bother to get?' Rufus replies, twisting his fingers and watching Tseng's expression falter for a moment.

'Turks don't fuck their Presidents,' Tseng laughs, throatily. 'Their Presidents aren't built for it.'

Rufus takes his fingers out and shoves them into Tseng's mouth instead, but Tseng's won that battle.

Luck watches, fascinated, taken in, bought over entirely.

'How do you want him?' Rufus asks him, as if he can tell, as if he knows how much all of makes Luck feel more alive than he's felt in years, as if he's used to buying loyalty with the expensive currencies of bodies, blood and bastardry.

Hoarsely, Luck says, 'Against the wall.'

Rufus nods, then follows up, 'And how do you want me?'

Luck doesn't know how to answer that beyond _yes, yes, yes._

  
When he wakes up, Tseng's in a chair on the other side of the room reading something off a computer and Rufus is on the phone, idly spinning a pen in his fingers as he makes decisions that could be (are) changing the world. Nothing in the room looks out of place. There's a fresh suit laid out on the empty space next to Luck, in his size and cut. Tseng makes no comment when he gets up to change. Only Rufus says anything, and then only after a breakfast ordered up and discussion about Shinra's next moves.

'Come here,' is what Rufus Shinra says, and he holds the tie that wasn't with the prepared suit in his hands like a leash.

_Heel_, just as Tseng would've said it, except that these men don't care for dogs, or men being anything less than what they are.

And Luck goes.


End file.
